MOST PEOPLE GET PRESENTS ON THEIR SIXTEENTH BIRTHDAY. I GET A PROPHECY THAT COULD SAVE OR DESTROY THE WORLD. It happens when you're the son of Poseidon, god of the sea. According to an ancient prophecy, I turn sixteen ant the fate of the entire world is on me. But no pressure. Now Kronos, Lord of the Titans, is beginning his attack on New York City. And the dreaded monster Typhon is also head…
Much Ado About Nothing has long been celebrated as one of Shakespeare's most popular comedies. The central relationship, between Benedick and Beatrice, is wittily combative until love prevails. Broader comedy is provided by Dogberry, Verges and the watchmen. The drama ranges between the destructively sinister and the lyrically romantic, giving the whole a complex and sometimes problematic chara…
Antony and Cleopatra is one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies: a spectaculer, widely-ranging drama of love and war, passion and politics. Antony is divided between the responsibilities of Imperial power and the intensities of his sexual relationship with Cleopatra. She, variously generous and ruthless, loving and jealous, petulant and majestic, emerges as Shakespeare's mos complex depiction o…
Bleak House is one of Dickens's finest achievements, establishing his reputation as a serious and mature novelist, as well as a brilliant comic writer. It is at once a complex mystery story that fully engages the reader in the work of detection, and an unforgettable indictment of an indifferent society. Its representations of a great city's dark underworld, and of the law's corruption and delay…
Mr Dombey is a man obsessed with his firm. His son is groomed from birth to take his place within it, despite his visionary eccentricity and declining health. But Dombey also has a daughter, whose unfailing love fo her father goes unreturned. 'Girls,' said Mr Dombey, 'have nothing to do with Dombey and Son.' When Walter Gay, a young clerk in her farher's office, rescues her from a bewilderin…
The Old Curiosity Shop with its combination of the sentimental, the grotesque and the socially concerned, and its story of pursuit and courage, which sets the downtrodden and the plucky against the malevolent and the villainous, was an immediate popular success. Little Nell quickly became one of Dickens' most celebrated characters, who so captured the imagination of his readers that while the n…
Clementine is having not so good of a week. - On Monday she's sent to the principal's office for cutting off Margaret's hair. - Tuesday, Margaret's mother is mad at her. - Wednesday, she's sent to the principal... again. - Thursday, Margaret stops speaking to her. - Friday starts with yucky eggs and gets worse. - And by Saturday, even her mother is mad at her. Okay, fine. Clementine is…
This year I am in the gifted class for math. And here is the bad surprise - so far no gifts. I told the Principal Rice about that problem when she got back from claming down Margaret's mother. "So far no gifts," I told her, extremely politely. Principla Rice rolled her eyes to the ceiling then, like she was looking for something up there. Ceiling snakes maybe, just waiting to drip on you... …
Clementine can't believe her ears - her beloved teacher, Mr. D'Matz, might be leaving for the rest of the year to go on a research trip to Egypt! No other teacher has ever understood her impulsiveness, her itch to draw constantly, or her need to play Beat the Clock when the day feels too long. And in his place, he's left a substitute with a whole new set of rules, which Clementine just can't fi…
"We'll go through my talents alphabetically," said Margaret. She went to a shelf and pulled down her accordion. She looked at my hands and then she looked at the keys. She put the accordion back. "Fingerprints," she said. Then she handed me her baton. Which I dropped. "Baton twirling's out." "How about your clarinet?" I asked. Margaret shook her head. "Spit" "D is for dramatic acting class," sh…